“Because maybe I could have done something, told someone, gotten him help. I could have stayed, but I left. But I never saw him using, Dustin, I swear he was trying to be good. He loved Natalia. They were my friends. I feel so stupid. Please don’t hate me.”

Without even thinking, Dustin took her hands in his own and looked deeply into her eyes. “Kimmie, I tried to hate you once. It didn’t work.”

She let go of his hands and grabbed him by the face, smashing her lips into his mouth and slipping her tongue between his lips. Her eyes were closed; his eyes were wide open. He wanted to remember this moment forever, but as they kissed, he let his eyelids shut, realizing that this memory wasn’t about the image of her. It was about the sensation of her touch, her taste, her smell. In this moment, he was blind.

Later, sitting on his mother’s couch in the living room, Kimmie and Dustin watched When Harry Met Sally. He remembered how he and his dad had sat on the couch together and cried over Nicholas months ago, but where they had been sitting on opposite ends of the seven-foot couch, Dustin and Kimmie now sat in the center, her head resting on his shoulder. She was enthralled by the film. When the movie was over, Kimmie turned to him and said, “I loved it. It’s a wonderful story.”

“Yeah?” Dustin asked. “What did you like the most about it?”

“I like that they were friends first. And then they weren’t friends. And then he loved her. And then she loved him. And then he lost her, and then he realized his mistake and ran through the streets to tell her he’d made a mistake. And that it ended on New Year’s Eve because that’s when we met for the first time. You know, I’m Harry though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m the one who didn’t know what I had when it was right in front of me. I’m the one who made a mistake and let a good thing slip through my fingers.”

Dustin stared at Kimmie in the dimly lit living room. His mother had never replaced the broken lamp, even after all these months.

“I didn’t know,” Kimmie said quietly. “I didn’t know myself. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know anything back then.”

Dustin nodded slowly. “Okay, so, I’m Meg Ryan and you’re Billy Crystal? What exactly are we talking about?”

Kimmie smiled. “I’m saying I want you to ask me to go to prom with you again. Now that I’m a full-on feminist, I’d ask you myself. But it’s not my prom.”